View from the Cheap Seats: The Temple of Boom

By Les Barnhart on September 17, 2016

This time was a much different story – the rematch with Temple carried everything from revenge to recruiting to questions about the state of the program. The Nittany Lions avoided any emotional letdown from their near-comeback loss to Pitt last week with a solid performance in a game they needed to win. And win they did.

Any win is great, but for the program to make true strides toward competing in conference titles, there needs to be improvement in turnovers. Yikes. With the “soft” schedule coming to an end today, the sledding will get tougher starting next week with the trip to Ann Arbor.

The Wolverines found themselves in a dogfight with Colorado when perhaps they were looking for a tune-up for their game with Penn State. The only hope the Nittany Lions have is that the Buffs can rough them up the way that the Pitt game did for the Penn State defense. Then again, waking up your opponent isn’t always the best approach with a team having the questions we still do. Then again, why not?

The questions marks surrounding the offense (and McSorley) are slowly being answered even though the defenses they faced the last three weeks aren't close to what they will see within their conference.

Next week's game will easily be the biggest test for this young season. In a game that should serve to test every facet of the team and perhaps even more so the coaching staff, playing well on the road will be a focus. We should be a significant underdog by next weekend with very little to lose other than the game. Which based on the idea of rankings and underdogs, we are supposed to do anyway. So why not make it worth our while to travel all the way out there by spoiling their day with a win? This looks like a much different (and exciting) team than last year and I see no reason why a win can’t happen. Can you?